And ex-England star Chris Waddle said England had played just 45 minutes of good football in the whole competition.

He added: “Where was the Plan B? We haven’t got one. We lacked so many ideas, it’s so frustrating.

“Look at how much money is in our league, it’s frightening, and all we do is waste it on rubbish ideas.”

BBC pundit Mark Bright posted on Twitter: “Gutted for those who’s hopes and aspirations were dashed at this world cup.

“Expensive trip for those fans who’ve made the trip down here.”

He added later: “Question? At club level Eng players are all surrounded by foreigners, does this mask there technical and tactical deficiencies at int level?”

Up to 20,000 travelling fans had converged on the ‘City of Roses’ for the most anticipated match of the World Cup so far.

Hollywood actor Ray Winstone mingled with supporters before the game, and England’s Wags were out in force - Toni Terry cheered on former captain John for her first match in South Africa, and Christine Bleakley (Frank Lampard) joined Carly Zucker, (Joe Cole) Chantelle Tagoe (Emile Heskey), Ellie Darby (Matthew Upson) and Laura Johnson (Glen Johnson) in the stands.

And at home experts said power was expected to have surged on the National Grid at the highest level since England played West Germany in the Italia 90 World Cup semi-final.

Nervous fans had feared a repeat of the 1990 World Cup and Euro 96 semi-finals when England lost to Germany on penalties.

But as the game wore on, and the Germans piled on the agony, England fans’ biggest concern was that Germany did not match England’s famous 5-1 victory in September 2001.

Captain Steven Gerrard insisted the disallowed goal had had a major impact but said he could not excuse the team’s performance.

He said: “There were big key decisions in the game, at 2-1 we had a goal disallowed. At 2-1 we were hurting them and we were still in the game.

“I think it had an effect but we cannot use that as an excuse with being beaten 4-1.

“That would have been a big goal for us. It’s all ifs and buts.

“Germany are a fantastic team and they deserved their win.

“You go away and you have a think about what went wrong and why we didn’t progress further in the tournament.

“As a team we’ve made a big mistake today and we’ve been beaten by a good team.

“They were more clinical in front of goal and they made less mistakes than us and we got punished for that today.”